


pretty little things

by covellite



Category: Hermitcraft RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Angst, Gen, M/M, Slavery, it is still kinda dark tho, it's not as dark as the tags suggest i promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:48:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28424238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/covellite/pseuds/covellite
Summary: There's a timeline where Tango doesn't save Zedaph, doesn't even know he exists. But someone has to do it.
Relationships: Zedaph & Welsknight, impulseSV & Zedaph (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 24





	pretty little things

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [escape](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28106955) by [covellite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/covellite/pseuds/covellite). 



> Me, writing an AU of my own damn AU? It's more likely than you think.

He's brought out of his restless dreams by the sound of the doorknob twisting, and is immediately on edge. Madame never visited during the night, and she would know the door is locked. She has the key, after all. His eyes dart across the room, despite knowing there's nothing in it he can use as a weapon. At best, he could throw a book at the intruder, but his books are all on the other side of the room and he can't bring himself to move.

There's a muffled voice on the other side of the door, probably a swear based on the rhythm of the words, and the person twists the knob hard enough the lock breaks. The door slides open, and Zedaph lies frozen on his bed.

He doesn't know what he was expecting from the intruder, but his expectations are definitely wrong. The man is serious, not wild, and horrified concern spreads across his face when he sees Zedaph. They stare at each other, neither one moving. Then the man's shoulders relax, and he takes his hand off the doorknob.

"Hello," he says softly, "I'm Wels. Do you live here?"

Zedaph nods. His voice is still gone, as is the ability to move in most of his body, but he knows better than to not respond to a vampire, so he does the best he can.

"Are you- can you speak? Or move? Are you hurt?"

He shakes his head. Wels purses his lips, then looks into the hall.

"I found a human," he calls out, and Zedaph realizes with a start that Wels is not alone in breaking into his home. "Stress, get over here."

A short woman with brown hair appears at Wels' side, and a disturbed look crosses her face almost too quickly to spot, quickly replaced with a soothing smile. "Hello, love," she says, and takes a careful step closer. When Zedaph doesn't move, doesn't even flinch away, she comes closer. Soon enough she's kneeling by his side, looking him over in a familiar way. She's a medic of some kind, has to be. Zedaph has done this before, plenty of times, usually after being fed from. But there's a…  _ kindness _ to her that his other doctors never had. She's gentle when she sweeps his hair out of his eyes and checks his pulse.

"Are you hurt?" she asks, repeating Wels' question from earlier. Zedaph shakes his head again, and she nods. "I'm glad to hear it. I know you're scared right now, but everything's going to be all right."

She looks over to Wels, who is watching them carefully. He shrugs at her, and she turns back to Zedaph.

"We're gonna get you out of here, okay?" she says, and Zedaph  _ panics _ .

"No!" he gasps out, shoving her away and scrambling up so he's standing next to the bed. "I can't leave."

"Why not?" Stress asks. Wels has shifted into a defensive position, and the thought of himself being considered a threat almost makes Zedaph laugh.

"She needs me here."

Wels looks away briefly, down the hall towards the main room. "You mean Mercy?" he asks casually, like he's trying too hard to not seem suspicious.

"I can't leave Madame," Zedaph says. Stress and Wels share a strange look with each other, and he wants to growl in frustration. It really is easy to understand, he doesn't know why they act so weird about it.

"Mercy is… not an issue anymore," Wels says, eyes carefully watching Zedaph. "She can't do anything to you anymore."

"What do you mean?" Zedaph knows he's shaking, but he can't make himself stop. Madame was  _ always _ there,  _ always _ waiting. Even when she let someone borrow him, she would send someone in to bring him back if he didn't return in time.

"Mercy's dead," Stress says quietly. "And the clan's been disbanded. You're free."

He stumbles into the wall as she speaks, a thousand thoughts racing through his mind, none of which he can focus on.  _ Dead _ ? Madame couldn't be dead, it didn't make sense. She was a thousand times more powerful than Zedaph would ever be, she couldn't  _ die _ . She wouldn't let it happen.

Stress says something, but he can't make out the words. The world goes blurry around the edges, and he just barely notices Stress and Wels both reach out to him before the world goes dark.

Wels looks more upset than usual when he returns to their home in the village, and Impulse wastes no time pulling him to the couch so they can cuddle. He starts untangling Wels' long hair in silence, knowing Wels will want to talk about what happened. Wels is quiet for a few minutes, then relaxes into Impulse's side.

"It was horrible," he says. "We didn't lose anyone during the fight, thankfully, but when we were looking through the house we found a human. Her live-in bloodbag, I think. And he was so-"

Wels presses his face into Impulse's shoulder, and Impulse wraps an arm around him. He hates seeing Wels like this, and his heart hurts at the thought of the poor human going through the same thing Impulse did without anyone else there to help him. He doesn't think he would have survived without Cleo there.

"I've never seen someone look so terrified of me before," Wels says, "Not even when I'm trying to be scary."

Impulse knows full well just how threatening Wels can seem when he wants to be, and the thought sends a shiver down his spine. "Where is he now?" he asks.

"In Stress' infirmary. He fainted when he found out the clan leader was dead. She- she must've really messed with his head. It was awful." Wels sighs when Impulse kisses the top of his head, and his whole body goes lax. "I need to think about something else. What have you and Tango been up to?"

It's too easy for Impulse to launch into the story of Tango's newest misadventure, and judging from the way energy slowly seeps back into Wels, it's exactly what he needed.

Even now that he’s been given the all-clear and let out of the infirmary, Zedaph can’t fully wrap his head around Madame being dead. It just doesn’t sound right. He keeps expecting her to be waiting there every time he turns a corner. It’s one of the many reasons he mostly stays in the room they gave him. It’s smaller and more impersonal than his bedroom in Madame’s house, but it’s the only place he can be alone. After years virtually on his own, being around others who don’t expect things is bizarre. He’s not sure he likes it.

He isn’t  _ completely _ alone in his room, though. Stress will show up if he goes too long without getting food, and Wels visits once a day, at the same time each day, to make casual talk. Sometimes he casually suggests Zedaph should go meet some of the others, an idea Zedaph is always quick to shut down despite how increasingly attractive it sounds. He does agree to go on little walks with Wels around the base — despite Wels being a vampire, Zedaph feels mostly comfortable around him, and if Wels wanted to hurt him he would’ve done so by now.

They always seem to run into someone Wels knows on their walks, usually a human, and Wels isn’t as good an actor as he thinks he is. Zedaph plays along, if only because it  _ is _ nice to have clear evidence that he isn’t the only human around, that he didn’t miss the wholesale eradication of humanity while he was locked away in Madame’s house.

Their walk today is just like any other, although Wels seems just a tiny bit livelier than usual as he shows Zedaph around the mostly-empty floor. It’s just like the other floors of the building, a relatively large lobby area and hallways branching off toward living areas. This floor is mainly temporary rooms apparently, for people who have a permanent home elsewhere but spend enough time at the base that they get their own place to sleep if they want it. Wels makes sure to point out the room he shares “with a friend and his boyfriend” and, as if on cue, the door to said room opens and two men walk out.

The first thing Zedaph notices is the bright red of the blond man’s eyes and the sharpness of his teeth when he grins at him and Wels. The second thing is that he  _ knows _ the other man. He looks different, a bit older and much healthier, but it’s still undeniably Impulse. A strangled gasp leaves his mouth and he’s sure he looks at least as shocked as Impulse.

“Zed?” Impulse rushes over, shakily grabbing onto his shoulders. Zedaph doesn’t even mind the sudden contact, he’s too distracted at the thought of someone he knows, someone he’s spent years dreaming about, being right there in front of him. “It’s really you.”

“You’re really you?” Zedaph says at almost the same time, and their shared laugh is a little hysterical. Wels and the other blond vampire are staring at them from the sidelines, but Zedaph pays them no mind. Wels is smart; he can figure it out.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” Impulse says, taking one hand off Zedaph’s shoulder so he can fruitlessly rub the tears from his eyes. “We all thought she killed you. But you’re here and you’re alive and you-” he cuts himself off and bundles Zedaph into his arms. Zedaph is all too willing to lean into the hug, even though he has to stand on his tiptoes to properly reach. Was Impulse this tall when he left? He doesn’t think so, and he wonders what else about him changed during their years apart. Then he remembers like a bullet to the heart what Impulse wrote in his last letter. But- his actions make no sense in that context.

“I thought you didn’t want to see me,” he says quietly, and Impulse pulls away just enough to look him in the eyes.

“What do you mean?” he asks, and Zedaph is glad to know he can still read Impulse like a book. There’s no deceit or malice or really anything bad at all in his eyes, just happiness and confusion mixed with sadness. “Why wouldn’t I want to see you?”

“In your letter, you said- you said you didn’t want to be friends anymore.”

In the well-lit lobby with Impulse right in front of him, it’s obvious before the words leave his mouth that Impulse never wrote those words, and Zedaph has to fight back the shame at ever believing them.

“I never wrote any letter,” Impulse says. “I didn’t even know you were alive until just now.”

“She lied to me,” Zedaph says, and it’s a phrase he’s told himself quite a few times lately. He can see bite marks covering Impulse’s arms, and adds that to his list of lies. Madame said no one else would need to be a bloodbag if he went with her, and sure, he’s known that one was a lie for a long time, but he still hates seeing proof of it, especially when it means one of his only friends suffered the same way he did.

“I’m sorry,” Impulse says for some bizarre reason. “I should have-”

“What could we have done?” Zedaph pulls Impulse in for another hug, and Impulse holds him like he’s afraid Zedaph will disappear if he lets go. “It wasn’t our fault.”

He’s told himself the same thing countless times lately, but now that he’s there with Impulse, now that he’s there in the arms of someone he knows loves him, it feels different. For the first time he can almost believe it.


End file.
